“That seems convenient,” Rouge said, and I nodded. “I don’t mean that in a good way, Dillon. You know it looks like a trap, right?”
“Of course,” I said, which was only a small white lie. I didn’t think it was a trap at first, I hoped it meant things were going our way. “Just follow me and stay on your toes.”
“Do you think the door was unlocked like that when Esho came here?” Winger asked, and I really wished she hadn’t, because the idea of Ms. Mittz drawing us in to her spider’s web, only to twist our heads off, made me want to double back and just get the hell out of there. I liked our heads where they were.
“If you two want to wait outside, it might be better. You’re kind of freaking me out, and I’m supposed to be the expert here.”
“Don’t worry Dill,” Rouge tried to chuckle, no doubt looking to alleviate the stress. “If you get into any trouble, I’ll save you again.”
“You saved him? She saved you?”
“Sort of,” I whispered, and heard the two of them high five behind me. Why weren’t they as worried as I was?
It could be because by the time we’d walked through the whole office, we’d discovered there was nothing there. No sign of Ms Mittz and no sign of any doorway to another realm. I was well past self-doubting my experience and theories. It’d all seemed so right to me. The office had to be the key; it made sense in every way. There was Chance, the smell of staleness in his office, the head-twisting happening here in both cases, and Ms Mittz’s claim of my involvement in all of it. The fact that the people she’d touched—myself included—saw the same melted-faced people, had to be more than just a mere coincidence. Add in that Esho and Chance both ended up dead in the exact same way, and in the exact same place led me to the office as the source of everything. So how could the gate not be there?
“Where does this lead?” Rouge asked, indicating the closet door in Chance’s office.
“It’s a closet,” I told her, having seen Ms Mittz use it on my one and only visit.
“Are you sure? I can feel a breeze coming from the space at the bottom,” she told me, and I rushed over.
You have to be kidding me! I thought.
I opened the door, and it looked like a closet, but there was no back wall there. When I’d seen it originally, there were coats and jackets hanging in there. With them pushed to the side now, I could see there was another door further back, and it was wide open to reveal a set of stairs going down. It was a secret room. I’ve always wanted to find a place with a secret room!
I pulled the Zuuar from my bag, aimed it down the stairs and watched as it glowed. There was something inhuman down there.
“Are you sure you two want to come down? This is the last chance to ditch,” I said, and there might’ve been a part of me hoping they would, but both said no, and the three of us moved down into the space under Chance’s office.
It was quiet below, and dark. Partway down the stairs, Rouge pulled her cellphone out and turned on the flashlight. There seemed to be no movement below, but I prepared myself for anything. I slowed my breath, listened as we descended and I readied for any sort of attack. We came to the last stair. I asked Rouge to shine the light around to try to find a light switch, and when she did, I flicked it and bright, fluorescent light lit the large, near-empty room. There were a few cardboard boxes stacked up near one wall, three file cabinets on another, and nothing else worth noting.
I lifted the Zuuar again, and it continued to shine, no matter what direction I turned it. Something was down there, but it didn’t have a single source.
“We’ll need to move some of the boxes,” I said to the others. “Maybe check behind the file cabinets. Something has to be here.”
“You sure that thing works?” Winger asked, as she looked down at the strange glowing metal in my hand. I really didn’t want to take the time to explain it.
“It does. So there’s something here, we just have to—”
My words weren’t cut off so much as I’d just lost the ability to speak. I’d been shifting some of the boxes aside and turned my head to see Rouge move the file cabinets, and there it was. The sight was terrifying and glorious all at once. I’d never seen anything quite like it, but I knew what it was as soon as my eyes fell on it. We’d found the gateway, the door to the Beelz realm.
“You should step back,” I called out to Rouge. She’d been standing in front of the rippling wall, but I didn’t need to ask twice. She stepped away from it as I moved forward. It was mesmerizing.
“There’s no way that’s real,” Winger gasped as I stepped past her to get a better look.
“It’s real, alright. This is the gateway to Beelz.”
“I’ve lost my mind, haven’t I?”
“No more than the rest of us,” I said, but then focused on the fissure.
The breach was about five feet tall. At the base, it was as wide as it was tall, but grew smaller until it ended at a point at the very top. There was a prism of light, rolling like waves on the beach, but shadows moved somewhere deep within it, indistinguishable shapes that looked as though they were coming towards the gate but never seemed to get there. This was it. This was the source of it all.
“Should we use the Firma Patch or the Azzeen Staff?” Rouge asked, and though I was impressed that she remembered the names so easily, it was too early for either of them.
“We can’t do that yet, Rouge.”
“Why not?”
“We need to find whatever demon or demons are already here and send them back first.”
“Why not seal it and just use your Tincher?”
“If this is something from the Beelz realm, and it’s somehow possessing or has attached itself to Ms Mittz, using the Tincher could kill her. I still have no idea how involved she is in all of it, but even if she somehow opened the gate herself, I can’t kill her. We need to split them apart, and then send it back through to save her. If we just kill the demon, she will die.”
“But where is she?” Winger asked, and I turned to Rouge.
“You have the Klask?” I asked, and she nodded and pulled out the small glass jar with the partially liquid, partially solid bug in it. “Give it a go.”
Rouge shook the jar a little harder than needed. The little blue guy inside flipped and flopped against the glass, and Winger watched in obvious, uncomprehending confusion. She opened her mouth to say something, but then there was a loud, ear-shattering scream that echoed around us, and she didn’t need to ask anymore.
From the shadows under the stairs, Ms Mittz stumbled out. She held her hands to her ears and looked as though she was in extreme distress. I told Rouge to shake it again, and when she did, something flickered behind the secretary. It was fast, but when Rouge continued to shake it, the flickering made the shape more and more solid until it was in full view. It was the demon.
The creature was huge. It towered four feet over Ms Mittz. Its body was lean in the lower half and widened as it went upwards, and looked more like a shadow than anything solid. I could see its dark lower half was snaked around Ms Mittz’s waist as the demon fought to hold on. Both the woman and her piggy backer both screamed: Rouge hadn’t stopped shaking the jar, and I didn’t tell her to stop when I noticed. Instead, I watched the scene before me, eyes stuck on the monster. There was no easy way to distinguish its features. It looked more like a living shadow with elongated arms that ended in dark hooks instead of hands. Its head was like a flame of shadows, listing to one side as it opened its mouth to scream and green, swamp-like light glowed from within.
This was the first time I’d come face to face with a demon from Beelz.
The screams stopped as the sound of breaking glass filled the room. I turned my head to see Rouge had dropped the jar and the bug inside evaporated as soon as the air got to it. That wasn’t good. I looked back towards Ms Mittz, and she charged at me, the demon still
in full view. Its hooked hands had disappeared back into the woman’s shoulders, and as woman and demon came at me, I took several steps backwards.
“You!” Ms Mittz growled, but even though it was her mouth that moved, the voice was not hers or human at all. “You’ve been touched. Now your soul is mine!”
Well, I guess that’s why it killed Chance and Esho. I’d never heard of demons from the Beelz realm claiming souls this way, but now I knew and would have to make a note of it so I could let the Collective and other hunters know. Always assuming I got out of it all in one piece.
The woman with the demon on her back continued to advance on me as I backed away. I fumbled with my bag. I needed to find something, and quick. My hands came out with a Teed, but that wouldn’t help. Then I found a bottle of Refulgent, but using it would kill Ms Mittz. I was running out of time: the demon was almost on me.
My fingers touched something cold and metal and I went to pull it out, but as I moved back, my feet collided with something on the ground and I fell backwards. The bag dropped to the floor and my hands were empty.
I didn’t really need it though, not to deal with the demon at least. My stumble sent me falling back and when I landed, I wasn’t on Earth any more.
I’ve been to a few planets and realms in my very long life. I’ve seen colour that would drive a human mind to the brink of insanity. I’ve witnessed vistas the most drugged out hippie wouldn’t even begin to imagine. I’d interacted with creatures that lived in more than one dimension at a time because their sheer size and magnitude didn’t allow them to live on one plane of existence. I’ve heard sounds from beasts a human ear would never detect, and listened to alien oceans speak words in strange languages because they weren’t just bodies of water, but living beings that could communicate with you.
Yet none of that compared me to the demon realm of Beelz. I’d seen into gates to other demon realms, but I’ve never been unlucky enough to trip backwards through a door into a world I never wanted to be in.
What was worse was the doorway I’d come through wasn’t on the ground level like it had been on Earth. Instead, it hung in the sky, twenty feet above where I’d fallen. I looked up at it, trying to see if Rouge or Winger were staring back at me, but the hole in the demon sky was just dim light, and even dimmer were the shadows of what could have been any of three people beyond it. If I hadn’t known it was there, I would’ve missed it. I thought of calling out, hoping one of them would hear me and throw me a rope or something, but no doubt they were all busy with Ms Mittz and her monstrous passenger.
Not to mention I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself in a place I didn’t want to be.
Instead of yelling out to the people back in the world I’d fallen from, I looked around to see if there was something that would help me get back to Earth. My eyes could barely make sense of the scene they fell on.
I was on a hilltop of sorts. There was no dirt or grass under my feet, though. What I stood on looked more like lizard scales, as if the hill and the valley below was actually the body of some large monster I couldn’t fully see. For all I knew I was right, but I didn’t want to take time to find out if this terrible idea was real or not. Getting out of that realm—and fast—was my only concern.
A loud roar echoed through the air, followed by a vibration all around that nearly knocked me off my feet. I looked about, took the entire vista in, worried for a second it would be some indescribable beast with a curious palate, and a hankering for some Dillon tartar.
The red and blue sky was full of winged creatures that were less than solid, something that flowed and changed like quicksilver does on Earth. They moved around above like birds at times, but in the next second they’d turn into globs of liquid in a sky without gravity. They didn’t look friendly in the slightest, but luckily they didn’t seem to pay me any mind. They were all bigger than I was, but none seemed big enough to make the sound that had caused my teeth to rattle in my head. I turned my attention to the valley below, and to the horizon in the opposite direction of the gateway. That’s where I saw what had made the sound, and my urgency to get out of the Beelz realm grew greater.
Huge creatures, ones that would put dinosaurs to shame, moved below. Their bodies were bloated, misshapen, with no sense of symmetry to them at all. One side was made of a nest of tentacles, or crab-like legs, while on the other side they had something that resembled human appendages. A little less than a third of the beasts had tattered wings made of what looked like silk, leather, or spider’s webbing, while others moved across the valley floor on pools of crimson or deep violet, as though the liquid was their legs. And it might well be that way too. In places like Beelz, nothing made one hundred percent sense.
The good thing was, none of them seemed to notice me, which meant it was safe to try to get to the breach to get out of there. The last thing I wanted was one of those huge monsters following me out, and then I’d have to deal with the demon as well as them. If I was fast, I’d get back to Earth, find a way to detach the demon from Ms Mittz without hurting her, and then I could close the gateway for good. The faster I did that, the less likely one of these monsters would get out, or worse, another demon would find me and the breech. One demon was more than enough for me.
The question was how to get up and out of there. I didn’t see a ladder. No trees close by to help out, and my bag was back on Earth. I knew it was going to be tricky. I had my gloves in my back pocket, my Tincher on my belt, and nothing else.
Well, that wasn’t true.
I also had some gum in one pocket, my cell phone in another, and my wallet in my back pocket. If I was that guy from that show in the ’80s, it would be enough to do the job. Alas, I’m not, and it wouldn’t.
I had an idea then, and as stupid as it seemed, I thought I might as well try it. After all, I was on an alien planet, trapped in a demon realm with nothing but a few things from Earth. These creatures wouldn’t have any idea what a cell phone was, and even better, the smell of the gum would be so foreign to them. If I could somehow attract one of the flying creatures to where I was, I could try, somehow, to wrangle it and ride it up and out of here.
It sounded as good as any other choice I had, which was none. It was either that or nothing. I doubted there was a Home Depot close by so I could buy a ladder.
“Well,” I whispered, “here goes nothing, I guess.”
I took one of the hard-shelled gums out from the package and went to snap it in half when something hit me in the head. It didn’t hurt, but I yelped and jumped, sure for a second that I was being attacked. I looked and saw a thin, yellow, nylon rope behind me. I followed it upwards and saw it lead to the breech, where the unmistakable shadow of Rouge hovered.
What was she doing? Had the demon gotten away?
Whatever it was, it would be better to just grab the rope and get the hell out of there. I took it, looped it around my waist and then gave it two sharp tugs. It tightened and I held on for dear life as I was slowly lifted over the alien landscape. The things flying above me were oblivious to my presence. They moved in circles and zigzags, some of them making sounds like cicadas as they flew, others sounded more like the crackling of electricity through an exposed cord. At least they weren’t noticing me.
The things below, though, they did. I shouldn’t have taken the gum out of the package. Next time, I’ll be sure to remember.
I heard a roar, rumbling like an earthquake, and when I looked back down at the valley where the monsters had been, I saw most of them looking up at me. A terrible sound that made me think my ears were going to start to bleed echoed through the air as five or six of the creatures ran up to the top of the hill I’d just been standing on. The sight of their massive, hulking, malformed bodies coming at me like a high speed train caused panic to set in. I wasn’t sure if they could fly up and follow me out, but if I wasn’t raised faster, some of the huge beasts would have a chance at
grabbing hold of me. I started to smack my hand against the rope, hoping they would get the messaged, feel the urgency, and then I heard a sound that nearly made me pee my pants.
It was so loud! Worse than sticking your head into one of those tall speakers at a concert, while Motorhead played Overkill. It was deafening, vibrating through my bones, and when I looked to my right, I saw the source. At least, I tried to make sense of it as best my mind could.
The ground had begun to rise. At least, most of the ground in my view had. There was something that resembled a face in what might’ve been the center of it. It was a wall of scaled meat and muscle with a huge, toothy hole that had to be a mouth. From that deep, dark orifice, a thousand tongues whipped wildly, and it all came straight at me. There was little doubt that the hill I’d been standing on was some monster after all, and it knew I was there. It was coming, but luckily something that big can’t move that fast. As it shifted to get at me, the unwelcome tourist, the other, smaller monsters tumbled backwards off of it. I hit the rope over and over again as the red and pink tentacles got closer and closer. I screamed for them to hurry, getting to see way more of the inside of the mammoth’s mouth than I wanted. I saw the end of Dillon right then and there, swallowed up by some unthinkable monster. I didn’t want to wonder if there would be a way to get a new body if this one was devoured by that thing, but that couldn’t keep the idea out. I closed my eyes as it inched closer and closer.
I was braced for some sort of attack; either from below, or from the giant beast. With my eyes shut tight, I didn’t see the moment I was pulled from this version of Hell, and returned to Chance Anderson’s office basement.
I was back on Earth.
It felt so good to breath in air that didn’t smell of rot and sulfur, but there was no time to celebrate or rejoice. There was still a demon in the room and a gate that needed sealing before anything else could wiggle through there.
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